The latest incident followed on the heels of two battery-related problems encountered on Japan Airlines flights and another on a United flight earlier this month. Those incidents happened in parallel with multiple other episodes, including two fuel leaks. Since July, the 787 has also encountered a damaged cockpit window, an oil leak, and two cracked engines, according to multiple news reports.

Auxiliary power batteries onboard a Japan Airlines Dreamliner 787 caught fire at Boston's Logan Airport on January 7. The battery was taken back to the National Transportation Safety Board's Materials Laboratory in Washington for further examination. (Source: NTSB)

Aviation experts said most of the problems are unrelated. "I tend not to believe that there's a single root cause behind all of this," David Freiwald, an assistant professor of aerospace at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told Design News. "Any new system has teething or growing pains. A few issues are to be expected."

The incidents did motivate aviation authorities around the world to order stoppage of Boeing 787 flights, however. The FAA also announced it will work with Boeing engineers to conduct a comprehensive review of the 787's design and manufacture, with an emphasis on the aircraft's electrical power and distribution systems.

On its website, Boeing emphasized the safety of its new aircraft, releasing a statement saying, "The airplane has logged 50,000 hours of flight and there are more than 150 flights occurring daily. Its service is on par with the industry's best-ever introduction into service -- the Boeing 777. Like the 777, at 15 months of service, we are seeing the 787's fleet wide dispatch reliability well above 90 percent."

Most of the concern around the 787 involves the use of lithium-ion batteries. The 787 is the first commercial aircraft to employ them. Its electrical architecture also operates at a higher voltages than predecessors, experts told us. "In terms of the ancillary systems, almost everything on the 787 is electrical," Freiwald said. "Most aircraft systems operate at 115V AC, whereas this is a 230V system. It's a pretty substantial amount of power and current."

Freiwald added that the lithium-ion batteries are used for auxiliary power back-up. In the past, he said, commercial airliners have typically used nickel-cadmium chemistries.

Battery experts told Design News that the choice of a lithium-ion chemistry shouldn't be a problem, but it does call for tighter control. "Lithium-ion is a pretty energetic material," Eric Dietz, a professor of computer and information science at Purdue University, told us. "You've got oxidation and reduction reactions happening in close proximity to one another, so it's important to maintain engineering control around the battery."

It's interesting that this is the same technology that Ford just standardized on. While the article mentions the cooling systems used in autos and some of the other design components, I can't help but wonder what can happen a few years down the road in vehicles that are not properly maintained...whatever the definition of "properly" may be with respect to battery safety.

I agree, Al. The spotlight is very bright in this case. I initially wondered if the bright spotlight might be part of the problem here. But the succession of battery overheating incidents in January alone is hard to ignore.

Chuck, Very interesting report. It's amazing how with a system as complex as the Dreamliner, there are a very large number of unknown variables to resolve. Tough for the Boeing engineers who are moving a project of this scope into the marketplace, especially in a spotlight as bright as this situation.

They obviously overlooked the battery design slightly in the initial stages of development. At least no one was hurt, but I am sure Boeing will fire a few on the battery team. With all the battery exploding incidents from the past, I am surprised that wasn't a concern for the engineering team. However, it could have been a manufacturing error.. Time will tell.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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